638 



CONSERVATION 



site company has given Mr. Allen an 

 option on all its holdings. The' ditch 

 will not only supply water for this 

 land, but many acres of other farming 

 ground will be brought to a state of 

 cultivation. The scheme is looked upon 

 as one of the most important that has 

 taken root in Baker County for some 

 time. Under cultivation the land will 

 guarantee an income of $45 an acre 

 yearly from its hay product alone. It 

 is now a waste. 



Spokane capitalists are planning to 

 put in a big irrigation plant on the 

 Columbia River, above the Cascade 

 locks, southwest of Spokane, where a 

 vast tract of land has been secured, 

 and more land is under option. Cas- 

 sius Wright, a rancher on the Big 

 Klickitat River, reports that the syn- 

 dicate is buying farming lands up the 

 river sixteen miles from Lyle, Wash., 

 with a view of making a canal into 

 Lyle. where the fall will be 400 feet. 

 Electric power may be generated for 

 manufacturing purposes. The suitable 

 fruit lands along the river will be sub- 

 divided into tracts and sold to truck and 

 fruit growers, with water privileges. 



)^ Jg «« 



A Pioneer in National Irrigation and Forestry 



TIME is the real test of wisdom. 

 However wise a man may seem to- 

 day, events of future years may prove 

 him to have been a simpleton ; and 

 ideas that to-day appear Utopian may. 

 after many to-morrows, command the 

 respect .and admiration of the multi- 

 tude. 



Occasionally a man has arisen whose 

 ideas and work have gained their great- 

 est appreciation long after his death. 

 Such a man was John Wesley Powell, 

 formerly Director of the United vStates 

 Geological Survey. The far-reaching 

 foresight of this man is becoming more 

 manifest with the passage of years. 

 Every feature of his plans for the or- 

 ganization and conduct of the Geolog- 

 ical Survey shows that he had vividly in 

 mind all the importance of the larger 

 movements that only to-day are being 



agitated — movements for the conserva- 

 tion of the National resources. 



Major Powell foresaw the time when 

 accurate information would be needed 

 concerning the mineral products of the 

 public domain. He realized that at 

 some time in the future forestry would 

 be a great issue. He saw the potential 

 value of the reclaimed arid West and 

 foretold the era of National reclama- 

 tion. To be ready for this he measured 

 the streams from which the water must 

 be derived for irrigation and hastened 

 the topographic mapping of the areas 

 involved. 



Many other projects of National im- 

 portance were foreseen and prepared 

 by Powell, the last that has been forci- 

 bly brought to notice being the project 

 for national drainage. During the re- 

 cent public agitation of this matter, 

 when broad and exact data were de- 

 sired, the needed facts were found ready 

 in the records and publications of the 

 bureau that he had created. Probably 

 few of the persons making those early 

 investigations realized half the mean- 

 ing of the results for the future, but 

 Powell fully understood their import- 

 ance. 



At the time Powell resigned the 

 Directorship of the Geological Survey 

 one of his more intimate younger asso- 

 ciates asked him what work that he 

 had done would, in his own judgment, 

 be most likely to keep his name in the 

 memory of men. He replied at once. 

 "My trip down the Grand Canyon." 

 The reply was modest, for the trip 

 down the Grand Canyon was only a 

 season of daring exploration and wild 

 venture. Powell's more enduring mem- 

 ory is involved with the work of build- 

 ing up a great National Bureau, with 

 the larger problems he foresaw, and 

 with the larger solutions for which he 

 made preparation. When the truly 

 great Americans are more wisely 

 judged in a day of better judgment it 

 may be that this wise counsellor for the 

 determination and conservation of the 

 Nation's resources will stand high 

 among the prophets and patriots of the 

 National pantheon. 



